Rossland is expected to have a new bylaw officer by July.
Council awarded a bylaw enforcement services term contract to Selkirk Security Services Ltd. at Monday night’s council meeting, and while the city’s chief administrative officer (CAO) and corporate officer (CO) Bryan Teasdale said the contract is still being negotiated, he expects enforcement will begin in July.
The city first issued a request for proposal (RFP) for bylaw enforcement services in May and Selkirk Security Services Ltd. submitted the only proposal, which falls within the city’s budget for the remainder of the year based on the officer working approximately 15 hours a week.
Selkirk Security’s proposal included certificates held by two of its employees, one of whom has a Level 2 certificate in Bylaw Compliance, Enforcement & Investigative Skills from the Justice Institute of BC and a certificate in Assessing and Interpreting Dog Behaviours. The other has a Level 1 certificate in Bylaw Compliance, Enforcement & Investigative Skills from the Justice Institute of BC.
As a timely coincidence, city staff also presented council with proposed changes to the Good Neighbour Bylaw on Monday night.
According to the request for council decision, the changes were based not only on council’s direction to staff at the meeting of June 27, 2016 to amend the bylaw to address bear bangers, but also on “recent complaints, inquiries and feedback from the community.”
Changes include addressing vehicle idling in its own section of the bylaw and a consolidated list of definitions presented in Schedule A. The changes also
The changes also originally included the clause, “No person shall operate a bear banger device to create noises as a method of bird or pest control,” but after discussion, council changed it to read, “No person shall operate a bear banger device.”
Council and staff also discussed other changes to be made to the bylaw before it’s brought back to council again, including adding wording about complaints being reasonable.
Teasdale told council that staff would add “some type of provision there that says we will try to enforce this based on a reasonable person.”
The reasonable person test is one used in Canadian law, and according to R. v. Hill, “The ordinary or reasonable person has a normal temperament and level of self‑control and is not exceptionally excitable, pugnacious or in a state of drunkenness.”
Council approves food charter
Council also approved the Rossland Food Charter, as presented by the Sustainability Commission Food Sustainability Task Force.
Task force member Caley Mulholland spoke to the charter during public input.
“The reason we believe this is important is to signal to our community that food issues are important to the city, but also to granters,” she said. “We ran into a couple of different situations with Interior Health, with Columbia Basin Trust, when we’re applying for grants as a good group, and they’re saying, ‘Okay, what kind of policies or documents does the city have to support the food projects?’”
The Rossland Food Charter was developed with feedback from the community. To see the updated charter, visit visionstoaction.ca/sites/default/files/food_charter_one_page_v2_revised_may_16_rec_0.pdf.